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Crude Java Flight Simulator
This is a very very very very crude approximation to a hang gliding simulator.
The top half of the simulator is essentially an artificial horizon (keep the blue side up and brown side down).
The bottom half of the simulator is a top down view of the pilot (yes, that insect-looking thing is supposed to be a pilot).
The pilot starts out blue (frozen). If you click on the pilot he/she will turn white, and the simulator starts running (you can release the mouse button - it's just a toggle between frozen and running). You move the mouse to shift the pilot's weight (right, left, fore, and aft). The artificial horizon should respond more or less appropriately. So if you shift the pilot to the right, the glider will roll right (the horizon will look like it's rolling left). Similarly if you shift the pilot to the left, the glider will roll left (the horizon will look like it's rolling right). If you shift the pilot forward, the glider will dive (horizon will rise showing more brown earth). If you shift the pilot rearward, the glider will climb (horizon will drop showing more blue sky).
Please note (again!!) that this is a very very crude simulation. It doesn't really have any real-world physics, but it provides a framework that could be used to do a better job. Also note that if you try to roll it upside down, the sky and earth will switch. But you can just keep flying (like I said, the physics are NOT correct). I also think it has a pitch problem that might keep you from looping it (sorry John Heiney). It seems to just get more and more vertical (either up or down) and it takes about the same amount of time to get out of it as it took to get into it. I just got the basics working, so I haven't explored all of its quirks yet. This particular application was written to run either inside a web browser (as it is here) or as a stand alone application. Just download the .jar file (http://ushawks.org/applets/HG00001.jar) and run it.
Have fun, and please post any comments. I can share the source code if anyone wants to work on improving it!!
